A typical machining apparatus has a frame having a vertical front wall and defining a work station, an intake station, and an output station. Conveyors can move the workpieces into the intake station and out of the output station. The work station holds at least one tool. vertical and horizontal guides support respective vertical and horizontal slides. A workpiece holder/grab carried on one of the slides is rotatable about a vertical axis and movable between a position alignable with the working, intake, and output stations on movement of the horizontal slide along the horizontal guide. Thus one of the workpiece can be shifted from the intake station into the work station, machined by the tool in the work stations, and deposited after machining in the output station, all while being held in the workpiece holder/grab, which typically is a three- or four-point chuck.
Such an apparatus using the pick-up principle is known in numerous designs, for instance form De 10 2004 005 498. They all have in common that the workpiece spindle is can be moved on a slide along horizontal guides on the machine frame so as to removes an unmachined workpiece from a conveyor, transfers it to the work station and subsequently deposits them again on the same or a different conveyor. On the upper frame of this machine, a horizontal guide is provided for the horizontal slide on which the vertical slide with the workpiece holder/grab can be vertically moved. The horizontal guide on the upper frame extends on both sides laterally beyond the working station so that the workpiece carrier can be moved on the one side into a workpiece intake position and on the other side into a workpiece output position. This results necessarily in a widely extended machine frame.